Put Him In Coach Pop!

With Tony Parker and Tim Duncan currently out of the lineup due to injuries, Spurs fans have seen changes with the Spurs’ starting line up and overall player rotation. In the Raptors and Mavericks games, we saw George Hill start at point guard spot, Keith Bogans start over Matt Bonner and Antonio McDyess and DeJuan Blair get more playing time.

Basically the Spurs need all the help they can get. Knowing this, shouldn’t this be a good time to bring in another player into the rotation? Namely Malik Hairston.

Now we all know Pop likes to play the veterans much more than younger players and the chances of Hairston getting minutes are small especially playing behind guys like Finley, and Bogans. But he can provide an added “punch” to this team. He brings hustle and defense to the team. We’ve seen this from him in past games for the Spurs last year, in the 2009 NBA Vegas Summer League and in the 2009 preseason.

In his first three preseason games, Hairston showed his offensive productivity averaging 6.3 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.3 assists in just 16 minutes of playing time. Last year in 15 games he played for the Spurs, he averaged 3.3 points and 1.9 rebounds while shooting 49% from the field while playing 10 minutes per ball game.

“Malik’s doing a fine job,” Popovich said. “He’s obviously concentrating on playing good defense; doing good work in that area. That’s an emphasis for everybody, all the young kids. You need to get that part of the program down first, and he’s definitely doing that.”